How Artificial Intelligence Can Boost Ecommerce Sales

Artificial intelligence has been slowly creeping into our daily lives for years. From self-checkout cash registers on brick-and-mortar stores, to personal recommendations on video streaming sites like Netflix, Artificial Intelligence is making the lives of consumers easier.

Forget about the science fiction scare tactics of how AI will rule the world. If you’re an online business owner and your sales rely on your ecommerce store’s revenue, here’s how artificial intelligence can boost your revenues dramatically.

Personal Shopper AI

IBM notes that personalized recommendations on ecommerce stores increase conversion rates by up to 5.5 times. It is one of the most used AI tech in ecommerce. For example, on Amazon, you’ll always see recommended items below the product you’re checking out.

In advanced scenarios, AI can be taken further by implementing chat bots who would as customers exactly what they want, and will be able to direct them to the most relevant product it could find throughout the store.

Apps have already begun implementing personal shopper AI into their systems. For example, Traveloka, an app that compares airline fares across various platforms, can give you real-time updates about tickets you’re interested in whenever price drops. The next logical step for Traveloka is to add AI, so it could check your personal calendar, book a flight that fits your schedule, and pay for it using your financial details.

Analyzing Huge Inventory

Dropshipping stores will greatly benefit from Artificial Intelligence. IBM’s Watson, which was designed to replace manual merchandising, is able to analyze large volumes of data, whether unstructured or structured, determine what kinds of products/brands to order, and find products that require replenishing.

This AI is exceptionally advanced and can predict customer trends based on buying data from a particular group or region. IBM’s Watson has been adapted by various companies, such as Under Armour and Way Blazer.

Improving Order Fulfillment

According to Conversica, at least 1/3 of marketing leads fail to be followed up by sales staff. Any business that computes these lost leads into revenue can identify the missed opportunity with pre-qualified potential buyers that don’t push through for one reason or another.

Automated functions on ecommerce stores are now able to follow-up with leads who abandoned carts. If you’re an online shopper, you’ve probably noticed how retailers are now sending e-mails whenever you don’t push through with your order.

This simple, automated process helps retarget would-be customers who would have become a statistic of lost business if not for the personalized e-mail. It also drives repeat business and encourages loyalty from your target market.

Automate Customer Service

AI-powered chat bots not only help ecommerce sites provide personalized shopping experience to consumers, these bots can also be used in providing real-time, 24/7 customer service.

Unlike traditional customer service providers who are paid by the hour, automating customer service means that you’ll only pay for the set-up and software once, and the system will pay for itself in years to come.

Fine-Tuning Promotions

The benefits of artificial intelligence in retail also extends to marketing. Since AI can interpret huge amounts of customer data, such as buying behavior, it can also anticipate how customers will react towards promotions and other market strategies.

Not only can this help an ecommerce store’s traffic, it could also lead to positive conversions and customer retention.

Expand Customer Base who Use Voice-activated Shopping

With voice search on the rise and mobile shopping enjoying steady growths, artificial intelligence combined with a site’s CRM would allow ecommerce to customize sales messages based on natural language learning.

If consumers use Alexa or Siri to search for a product, your CRM will now be able to respond to inquiries and solve customer problems automatically.

The Bottom Line

These are just the tip of the iceberg, but all of them are aimed at making the shopping experience of users as seamless as possible. Various brick-and-mortar stores are already using face recognition to detect those who are on a database of retail theft. Imagine the possibilities artificial intelligence could bring to your ecommerce store.

Gartner forecasts that 85% of interactions with a customer will be handled without a human by 2020. The best thing about this is that about 70% of millennials are excited for retailers to embrace AI technology and improve user engagement on their stores. About 72% of experts in the field believe that businesses would be able to predict what customers need or want by implementing artificial intelligence effectively.

Accenture predicts that AI could boost sales by 59% in the retail and wholesale industries by 2035. If your business is in ecommerce, your biggest challenge now is how to adopt artificial intelligence to your advantage.

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